TODAY I have sent to the Congress my proposals for the Civil Rights Act of 1967.
It is in many respects very similar to the measure I asked Congress to adopt last year. As you will remember, that measure was favored by a majority of both Houses and actually passed the House, but never did get to a vote in the Senate.
Though we were not successful last year, I am asking Congress to bar discrimination in housing, and to secure other very basic rights for every citizen of this land.
I am doing this for one reason--because it is right. And I am doing it in the name of millions of Americans, both white and Negro, who object to treating their fellow citizens one way on the battlefield and another way in the country they are fighting to defend.
Note: The President recorded the statement for radio and television broadcast. It was not made public in the form of a White House press release.
Lyndon B. Johnson, Statement by the President on the Message on Equal Justice. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237828